Award-winning author, Shelly Puhak, joins us to discuss her wonderful book, The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World, about two of the most powerful rulers in European history: Queen Fredegund and Queen Brunhilde.

These two powerful queens commanded armies and fought each other over several decades. Brilliant and tough, they battled not only for supremacy, but survival, using the tools of diplomacy and warfare as needed.  Alliances with popes, queens and kings stabilized their realms.  Combined, their empires extended through Germany, Belgium, France and Spain, and laid the foundations for the the development of European nation-states to come. 

After their deaths, they suffered a familiar fate as other great women of history: their stories were erased or rewritten, and their names were sullied.

Dawn "Sam" Alden and Sean Marlon Newcombe co-host.

Kimberly Rockwell, Dawn "Sam" Alden, and Lauren Torres talk about what it feels to walk through life as a woman in a large body, what feedback women receive about their bodies, and how the current emphasis on thin bodies to the exclusion of everything else can destroy us both from within and without. What messages did we absorb from our parents about what size was optimum for women? Why do we still believe the "calories in, calories out" message, despite it being just plain bad science? Why don't we understand more about what really affects our body size? And why does it freaking matter anyway???

Hello listeners! I hope you have had a chance to check out our interview with Chelsea Gardner and Melissa Funke of Peopling the Past, which aired earlier this season.  As a follow up, they have generously allowed us to do a Podcast Takeover of one of their episodes!  We here at 34 Circe are big fans of Wonder Woman, so although it’s not a typical episode for them, we are sharing the one in which they discuss Wonder Woman and other classics in comics with Dr. Natalie Swain.  We hope you enjoy, and check out the rest of their episodes at peoplingthepast.com

In modern times divination is often seen as superstitious tools used primarily to predict the future. However, since ancient times our ancestors used divination as essential meaning making tools, allowing us to connect with core archetypes in order to see our personal and cultural lives in deeper ways.  Join Lauren Torres and Anu Dudley author of The Goddess Casts the Runes, as we discuss the evidence for the matriarchal origins of the Elder Futhark Runes, their meaning when a patriarchal overlay is removed, and why connecting with them can offer a powerful recovery of ancient ways of knowing.

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While researching Robert Graves, Sean Marlon Newcombe reached out to Dr. Anett K. Jessop, who introduced us to Laura Riding Jackson, a poet, linguist, revolutionary thinker and sometime lover of Robert Graves. It could be argued she was the inspiration for a lot of Graves work, including the idea of reclaiming myth from the patriarchal lens. A fascinating, uncompromising and multi-talented woman, we just scratch the surface of her legacy in this interview! With Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden.

Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden sit down with Professor Carolyne Larrington to get back to basics in discussing the Norse pantheon of Goddesses. Just how much information was in the original source material? And how much of even that was through the lens of those who were decrying their subjects? Join us to find out!

Sean Marlon Newcombe, Dawn "Sam" Alden and Kimberly Rockwell are playing Siskel and Ebert again, this time with movies featuring female spies. Espionage apparently looks different in fishnets.

Dawn "Sam" Alden interviews Melissa Funke and Chelsea Gardner of the Peopling the Past project - a website, a podcast, and so much more. In this meta episode, they talk about talking about the ancient world, how archeology actually works, and why focusing on the everyday in antiquity is so important to getting the complete picture.

In this episode we sit down with Walter Penrose, PhD, associate professor of history at San Diego State University. Dr. Penrose specializes in the History of Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Greek, Hellenistic, and South Asian contexts. We talk with him about the historical views of the Amazons, particularly in the non-Western world. 

Female bodyguards were employed by the Ancient Indians and Persians and many of these women came from the Black Sea region-- the same region where the Greeks identified the presence of Amazons.  We discuss the Indian concept of "Stri Rajya" or "The Kingdom of Women"  which the Ancient Indians located to the west of them, towards the Eurasian Steppe and Caspian Sea-- in the same neighborhood as the Black Sea.  

Lastly, we also explore the stories of Hellenistic warrior queens and their connection to the warlike tribes from the same region as the female bodyguards and The Kingdom of Women: the Thracians, Scythians and Sauromatians. 

Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden co-host.

Kimberly Rockwell, Dawn "Sam" Alden and Lauren Torres talk about the music that shaped their youth. The songs we scream-sang, and those that comforted us when we were heartbroken - did we ever really listen to the lyrics? Music has power to teach, and words set to music stick in our heads. What were we absorbing when we were young, what were we being taught by the music on the radio?